


Your Pain is A Priori

by Writing_Doodle



Category: Falsettos - Lapine/Finn
Genre: (The sections aren't in chronological order), (f-slur used once), Character Study, Gen, Implied/Referenced Cheating, Period-Typical Homophobia, Stream of Consciousness, Trina Needs Love 2k17
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-15
Updated: 2017-03-15
Packaged: 2018-10-05 09:27:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,609
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10303445
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Writing_Doodle/pseuds/Writing_Doodle
Summary: She noticed. Of course she noticed. He wasn't nearly as discreet as he thought he was.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Huge, HUGE shoutout to @worrylesswritemore for being an awesome beta and cleaning up some of this mess. 
> 
> I love Trina dearly and I just realized that the last fic exclusively focusing on her was written in 2004. Isn't that fucked up or what.

In the early stages of their relationship, they would go to bars together. Trina would admit that she enjoyed it - at first. She enjoyed drinking with him, talking with him, _being_ with him. He enjoyed it too; or at least, he pretended to. 

It was hard to look back at memories like this with fondness. 

Over cheap beer they would talk about their days, their lives, their _dreams._ They would talk and talk, but then it’d get to a point where Marvin would be too drunk to keep up the _act_

Oh, _Marvin,_ so proper, so charming, so _repressed_. After few a drinks, that perfectly controlled demeanor would start to slip away. Trina didn't mention it. Trina would laugh and nod along and pretend like she didn’t notice how Marvin would stare _too_ long at the bartender, how he’d bite his lip and glance periodically at the young men shadowing the corners.

Trina was very good at that. She was good at pretending like everything was alright. 

-

One day, she mentioned that their date nights at the bar were getting dull. She hoped that he'd take the hint. She hoped that he'd look into her eyes and _know_ that she’s seen him.

He just nodded absently and said, "That's too bad." 

He still went to the bars. Trina stayed at home and drank by herself, idly wondering if he had the balls to hook up with any of the men he leered at. 

She laughed. She laughed and laughed at that ridiculous idea. 

"He's not _queer_." She said to an empty room and an empty bottle of wine. "He loves me." 

The words were as empty as the room and the bottle.

-

He started showing some of his true colors soon after they married. 

She’d snip and fuss and nag at both major and trivial things, sometimes just so he would actually _look_ at her. She’d utter a single complaint, and Marvin would explode - slamming doors, throwing glasses, punching walls. These hugely disproportionate outbursts used to frighten her. After a while, though, she just became numb. She’d observe the wreckage coldly and she wouldn’t flinch. Not once.

She used to clean up his mess. Eventually, she just left it there for him to deal with. 

"What's this?" Marvin would ask, staring at the broken glass on the floor as if it wasn’t a product of his own tantrum. 

"It's yours." Trina would answer, forcing her voice to be level and detached. 

At least he had the decency to look ashamed. 

-

Looking back, she wondered if Marvin started having affairs soon after she stopped going to the bars with him. Stopped being his chaperone. His leash. His _reminder_. 

Whizzer couldn't have been the first, right? 

_Right?_

She hoped. Part of her hoped that he was. It was a foolish, pointless thing to hope for, but part of her _needed_ to believe that. That this wasn't going on longer than she thought. That Marvin was _hers_ for all that time until _Whizzer Brown_ strolled into their lives. 

It was selfish, she'll admit that. But she's allowed to be selfish, isn't she?

The _men_ certainly are. 

-

"He's always been like this." Marvin's mother would say, a tight smile plastered across her face. "You should've seen him when he was fourteen!" She'd laugh, fake and almost hysterical, into her tea. 

Trina politely drank hers and observed Marvin as he had a conversation with his father across the room. Their eyes met and Marvin's were pleading, _begging_ for her to come and rescue him. The thought of saving her husband from her father-in-law was almost amusing enough to entertain.

"He was a firecracker, you know." Marvin's mother said, nostalgic. Weary. 

_More like a time bomb,_ Trina wanted to say. 

But all she did was smile and nod. She’d get quite good at that over the years.

-

"Did you ever love me?" She asked, one day. Long after everything happened, long after the world came crashing down.

He didn't answer right away. He loosened and tightened his tie compulsively. Always the patient one, Trina gave him the time to gather his thoughts. 

"I wanted to." He whispered, after a long period of silence. His head was bowed, ashamed with himself no doubt. 

Trina nodded. She reached out, wrapped an arm around his shoulder, and tugged him closer. He startled slightly, like a frightened animal. _He's pathetic,_ she allowed herself to think. But it was a shallow thought, one she was ashamed of the second it crossed her mind. 

She squeezed tightly and refused to let go and he let her hold him. She was grateful for that. She had no idea if this attempt at a hug was more for her or for him. 

"Thank you." She was surprised to find that she meant it. 

She wondered if this was what healing felt like. 

-

Oh, Whizzer, Whizzer, Whizzer... 

She wanted to blame him for all of her problems. And, to be fair to herself, he _was_ the cause of more than a few of them. 

She wanted to blame him for the deterioration of her marriage, but she knew that that wasn't completely true. It had already been falling apart at the seams, long before Whizzer came into the picture. 

Sometimes she had the urge to thank him. _Thank you for rescuing me from another twenty or so years of a loveless marriage._ Almost as quick as it came, the thought would leave her. Bitterness was the only thing left in her these days. 

She was _bitter._

She was bitter over all the years she wasted trying to hold her marriage together while Marvin wasn't even _trying_. 

She was bitter over the marriage in the first place, as much as she tried to deny it. It wasn't supposed to happen, but... 

Life never turns out how you plan, does it? 

The simple fact of the matter was that _this_ was her life. There was no point in being bitter. Everything was said and done and bitterness doesn't do anyone any good, least of all herself. 

Mendel told her it was normal to feel this way. 

"No matter how you slice it, you were betrayed." He gave a small, almost helpless shrug. "No one would blame you for being bitter about the whole thing." 

She's not sure how much he meant what he said - if he was genuinely trying to help her feel better, or if he had ulterior motives. After all, she noticed how he stared at her. She always noticed. 

She was disgusted to find that she didn't care. 

In the end, she welcomed the attention, even if was crude. She was _wanted_. 

Who could blame her for wanting that? 

-

"Why's Dad never around anymore?" 

It was a question she was expecting. It was a question she was _dreading._ She suddenly realized that they’d never talked to Jason throughout the entire ordeal. 

The time between the moment she caught Marvin in the act and the moment she kicked him out of the house were a blur. A blur of yelling and crying and bargaining. 

No one ever thought of Jason, silently observing everything. Quietly playing chess in the same den Trina caught Marvin and Whizzer in. 

She knelt down to his level and combed her fingers through his rumpled curly hair. _Same as Marvin's_ , she thought absently. He was so much like Marvin, it was almost painful. 

She knew that Jason knew. She could see it in his eyes. Eyes too bright and intelligent for his age. Too observant. He was still just a kid, though, a kid who needed to know that what he saw was true. 

She didn't want to confirm it. She didn't want to believe it herself. 

She sighed, brushed his hair out of his eyes, and said, "There's no easy way to say this, but," He's a fag, he's queer, he's _gay_ , he likes _men._ "Daddy's kissing boys." She cringed as it came out of her mouth, unbelievably bitter to hear and taste. 

Jason's face was blank. Trina pulled him close and kissed the top of his head. Once she let him go, he wandered off to his chess set. 

_He's gonna be there for a while,_ Trina thought wearily. 

-

She thought back to the first time they slept together. 

It wasn't perfect. It was never enough, but she was used to that. Marvin wasn't the only man she's slept with, and her experience with him was more or less the same as with the rest of them. None of her past lovers were ever as attentive as she'd like them to be. But as far as things went, it was good. Yeah, it was good.

She laid in the bed, blankets pooled around her waist and legs tangled in the sheets. She stared at the ceiling and just breathed. Breathed and let her thoughts carry her away. Marvin slept beside her, just within arm’s reach. She turned over and watched him. 

He looked almost peaceful. It was nice. 

Absently, she brushed a stray hair out of his face. He stirred and she paused. Slowly he opened his eyes, bleary, but piercing all the same. He smiled loosely, reached out, and returned the gesture, brushing away a strand of hair until it was safely tucked behind her ear. She felt her heart flutter.

"You're beautiful." He said, and she believed him. 

Time couldn't touch them. Not right now. As far as she was concerned, this moment would last forever.

He pulled her closer and they fell asleep wrapped in each other's arms. She was content. 

-

"I love you." He'd say, weeks, months, years later. 

And she always believed him.


End file.
